Robert W. Fichter was a student of anthropology at the University of Florida when he decided to change subjects and moved to the department of fine arts, where he studied painting, printmaking, and photography. Fichter had been the editor of his High School yearbook and continued this path at university: he was a co-founder of the student literary magazine Scope. Fascinated by ruins since childhood, the decay of civilisation became a recurring topic in Fichter’s photographs. In his landscapes, he explores the expressive possibilities of photography. Fichter also produced etchings and lithographs, worked as curator and was a professor at several universities across the United States.